1902 in the United States
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Events from the year 1902 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
- President: Theodore Roosevelt (R-New York)
- Vice President: vacant
- Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: David B. Henderson (R-Iowa)
- Congress: 57th
State governments
Events
JanuaryâMarch
- January 3
- The first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California.
- Nathan Stubblefield demonstrates his wireless telephone device in Kentucky.
- January 8 â A train collision in the New York Central Railroad's Park Avenue Tunnel kills 17, injures 38, and leads to increased demand for electric trains.
- January 28 â The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C., to promote scientific research with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
- February 9 â Fire levels 26 city blocks of Jersey City, New Jersey.
- February 18 â U.S. President Roosevelt prosecutes the Northern Securities Company for violation of the antitrust Sherman Act.
- February 22 â Senators Benjamin Tillman and John L. McLaurin, both Democrats of South Carolina, have a fist fight while Congress is in session.[1] Both Tillman and McLaurin are censured by the Senate on February 28.
- February â A commission on yellow fever announces that the disease is carried by mosquitoes.
- March 10 â A Circuit Court decision ends Thomas Edison's monopoly on 35 mm movie film technology.[2]
- March 22 â International Harvester formed by merger of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Deering Harvester Company and other companies.[3]
AprilâJune
- April 2 â The Electric Theatre, the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.
- April 7 â The Texas Oil Company Texaco is founded.[4]
- April 14 â The first J. C. Penney department store opens in Kemmerer, Wyoming.[5]
- May 15 â It is claimed that in a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore achieves flight in a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider). There is no surviving evidence to verify this claim.
- May 20 â Cuba gains independence from the United States.
- May 22 â Crater Lake National Park is established in Oregon.
- June 2 â The coal strike of 1902 begins in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania.
- June 13 â Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, predecessor of global consumer goods brand 3M, begins trading as a mining venture at Two Harbors.[6]
- June 15 â The New York Central railroad inaugurates the 20th Century Limited passenger train between Chicago and Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
- June 17 â The Newlands Reclamation Act funds irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the American West.
- June 23 â Nurse Jane Toppan is convicted on 12 counts of murder (she admits to 31) in Massachusetts but is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed for life.[7]
- June 24 â Target Corporation, the department store chain, is founded.
JulyâSeptember
- July 1 â The Philippine Organic Act becomes law, providing that the lower house of the Philippine legislature will be elected after the insurrection ends.
- July 2 â The PhilippineâAmerican War ends.
- July 8 â The United States Bureau of Reclamation is established within the U.S. Geological Survey.
- July 10 â The Rolling Mill Mine disaster in Johnstown, Pennsylvania kills 112 miners.
- July 17 â Willis Carrier devises air conditioning in New York City.
- July 22 â Felix Pedro discovers gold in modern-day Fairbanks, Alaska.
- August 22 â Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first American president to ride in an automobile, a Columbia Electric Victoria through Hartford, Connecticut.
- September 19 â Shiloh Baptist Church stampede: 115 people are killed in a crush at a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, following a mistaken alarm of fire after an address by Booker T. Washington.
OctoberâDecember
- October 21 â A 5-month strike by the United Mine Workers ends.
- October 24 â Delta Zeta sorority is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
- November 2 â William D. Jelks is elected the 32nd governor of Alabama defeating John A. W. Smith.
- November 16 â A newspaper cartoon depicting President "Teddy" Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub inspires creation of the first teddy bear by Morris Michtom in New York City.
- November 30 â On the American frontier, the second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, Harvey Logan ("Kid Curry"), is captured after a shootout with lawmen in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is sentenced to a $5,000 fine and 20 years hard labor for robbery but escapes custody in 1903.
- December â The Venezuela Crisis of 1902â1903 occurs (until February 1903), in which Britain, Germany and Italy sustain a naval blockade on Venezuela in order to enforce collection of outstanding financial claims. This prompts the development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Undated
- The Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana, begins as a duck pond.[8]
- The First Goodwill Industries Store is opened in Boston, Massachusetts by Rev. Edgar J. Helms of Morgan Methodist Chapel.
Ongoing
- Progressive Era (1890sâ1920s)
- Lochner era (c. 1897âc. 1937)
- PhilippineâAmerican War (1899â1902)
Births
- January 4 â John A. McCone, CIA Director from 1961 to 1965 (died 1991)
- January 9 â Ann Nixon Cooper, African-American civil rights activist (died 2009)
- January 19 â Marjorie Daw, actress (died 1979)
- January 24 â E. A. Speiser, biblical scholar (died 1965)
- February 6 â George Brunies, jazz trombonist (died 1974)
- February 13 â Blair Moody, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1951 to 1952 (died 1954)
- February 19
- Kay Boyle, writer (died 1992)
- Eddie Peabody, musician (died 1970)
- February 27
- Ethelda Bleibtrey, Olympic swimmer (died 1978)[9]
- John Steinbeck, novelist (died 1968)
- March 4 â Russell Reeder, soldier and author (d. 1998)[10]
- March 16 â Leon Roppolo, jazz clarinetist (died 1943)
- March 17 â Bobby Jones, amateur golfer (died 1971)
- March 21 â Al Smith, cartoonist (died 1986)[11]
- March 23 â Philip Ober, actor (died 1982)
- March 24 â Thomas E. Dewey, 47th Governor of New York, 1948 Republican presidential nominee (died 1971)[12]
- April 11 â Quentin Reynolds, journalist (died 1965)
- April 2 â David Worth Clark, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1939 to 1945 (died 1955)
- April 27 â Harry Stockwell, actor and singer (died 1984)
- May 6 â Harry Golden, Ukrainian-born American journalist (died 1981)
- May 11 â Dick Curtis, actor (died 1952)
- May 15 â Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago from 1956 (died 1976)
- May 21 â Earl Averill, baseball player (died 1983)
- May 24 â Wilbur Hatch, composer (died 1969)
- May 27 â Gladys Pearl Baker, née Monroe, film editor and mother of actress Marilyn Monroe (died 1984)
- June 2
- James T. Berryman, political cartoonist (died 1971)
- Rosa Rio, organist and composer (died 2010)[13]
- June 7 â Hope Summers, screen character actress (died 1979)
- June 25 â Ralph Erickson, baseball pitcher (died 2002)
- July 4
- Vince Barnett, actor (died 1977)
- George Murphy, U.S. Senator from California from 1965 to 1971 (died 1992)
- July 7
- Richard Barrett Lowe, governor of Guam and American Samoa (died 1972)
- Ted Radcliffe, baseball player (died 2005)
- July 16 â Andrew L. Stone, screenwriter, director and producer (died 1999)
- July 21 â Joseph Kesselring, playwright (died 1967)
- July 31 â Randolph Edgar Haugan, author, editor and publisher (died 1985)
- August 1 â Harold D. Schuster, film director (died 1986)
- August 4 â Clara Peller, actress (died 1987)
- August 18 â Margaret Murie, environmentalist and author [14]
- August 22 â Omer Poos, United States district judge from 1958 to 1976 (died 1976)
- September 7 â Roy Barcroft, actor (died 1969)
- October 3 â Waldo McBurney, America's oldest worker (died 2009)
- October 5 â Ray Kroc, businessman, founder of McDonald's (died 1984)
- October 13 â Arna Wendell Bontemps, writer (died 1973)[15]
- October 21 â Eddy Hamel, soccer player (d. 1943 in Auschwitz)[16]
- October 25 â Henry Steele Commager, historian (died 1998)
- November 14 â Pua Kealoha, Olympic swimmer (died 1989)
- November 19 â Trevor Bardette, actor (died 1977)
- November 23 â Aaron Bank, colonel (died 2004)
- December 5 â Strom Thurmond, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (died 2003)
- December 8 â Oswald Jacoby, bridge player (died 1984)
- December 9 â Margaret Hamilton, actress (died 1985)[17]
- December 14 â Frances Bavier, stage and television actress (died 1989)[18]
- December 15 â Bernard L. Austin, admiral (died 1979)
- December 23 â Norman Maclean, author (died 1990)
- December 27 â Carman Maxwell, animator and voice actor (died 1987)
- December 28 â Mortimer Adler, philosopher (died 2001)
Deaths
- January 15 â Alpheus Hyatt, zoologist and paleontologist (born 1838)
- February 18 â Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co. (born 1812)
- March 12 â John Peter Altgeld, 20th Governor of Illinois (born 1847)
- March 14 â Daniel H. Reynolds, Confederate Brigadier General (born 1832)
- April 3 â Esther Hobart Morris, first women justice of the peace in the United States (born 1814)
- April 27 â Julius Sterling Morton, 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture (born 1832)
- May 5 â Bret Harte, short-story writer and poet (born 1836)
- May 26 â Almon Brown Strowger, inventor (born 1839)
- June 5 â Louis J. Weichmann, chief witness for the prosecution in the trial of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln (born 1842)
- July 27 â Packy Dillon, baseball player (born 1853)
- August 10 â James McMillan, Canadian-born U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1889 to 1902 (born 1838)
- September 26 â Levi Strauss, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (born 1829)
- October 26 â Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist (born 1815)
- November 22 â Walter Reed, Army physician (born 1851)[19]
- November 27 â George S. Cook, prominent early American photographer (born 1819)
- November 29 â John Elliott Ward, politician and diplomat (born 1814)
- December 4 â Charles Dow, founder of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal (born 1851)
- December 7 â Thomas Nast, political cartoonist (born 1840)
- December 14 â Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (born 1826)
- December 22 â Dwight M. Sabin, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1883 to 1889 (born 1843)
- December 26 â Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author and poet (born 1849)[20]
